Patient Stories

Bella's Story

Bella was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in November 2016. She was just two years old at the time. Her mum, Lisa, tells their story so far:

No signs or symptoms

You hear all these stories of mothers that knew their child weren’t themselves but had to battle for doctors to listen to them. Well, what about when your child has no signs or symptoms that there are ill, and the only reason you go to the hospital is due to her falling off a chair?

Cancer is the scariest thing anyone could go through, especially when they are only two years of age. To hear that your baby has leukaemia has got to be the hardest thing to hear.

Bella really struggled with chemotherapy and we spent month after month in the hospital. When one infection went, she seemed to catch another. At one point I thought this nightmare would never end. After 10 months of intensive chemotherapy which could be up to four doses of chemotherapy a day, Bella went into maintenance chemotherapy.

She has started to eat again

The difference in Bella is unbelievable. She is happy and has even started to eat again. Her eating is very limited but she is eating enough to say goodbye to the NG tube. We still have a long way to go and Bella will carry on receiving monthly chemotherapy through her port. She will be having oral chemotherapy every evening alongside steroids, methotrexate and weekend antibiotics until 2019.